English as an Additional Language/Articles and Adjectives

Next up we will learn two very important things: articles and adjectives. Both articles and adjectives typically occur before the noun they modify, with articles occurring before adjectives.

Articles
Like other languages, English has a definite and an indefinite article. Unlike most Romance languages, English has no gender of nouns and so the articles don't change at all.


 * Definite article (used when the noun or nouns are already known):
 * The
 * Indefinite article (used when the noun or nouns is not already known):
 * For singular nouns: a
 * For singular nouns beginning in a vowel or a silent "h:" an Note that often "a" is used in front of vowels for some words; you will have to learn the exceptions individually.
 * For plural nouns, the closest thing to an article would be some.

Adjectives
Remember that an adjective describes a noun. In English, adjectives are always placed before the noun, for example:


 * The red apple.
 * A soft sheep.
 * An angry dragon.
 * The silly boys.
 * Some hard rocks.

Also, English adjectives do NOT agree with number or gender:


 * The red apples, NOT The reds apples
 * Some tall women, NOT Some talles women

The exception, however is the adjective "blond", which agrees with gender in writing:
 * The blond boy, but;
 * The blonde girl.

This is not strictly observed, however. Either "blond" or "blonde" is acceptable, and you are unlikely to be noticed using the feminine form for a male noun or vice versa.